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Macaron Tutorial

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

A little prep does a lot of good! Start these on saturday evening and you will be rewarded with the most comforting sunday breakfast or brunch. As a baker/cook I know that a little preparation and planning is best, but in the case of yeasted breads, I tend to get a craving at odd times of the day (read late afternoon) and find myself baking late at night, thus smelling fresh brioches and rolls right when I am about to go to bed. Granted it makes my dreams extra nice and warm but I get up to a slightly older loaf when I'd rather have a fresh piping hot roll on sunday morning.

I started these rolls on saturday evening as we decided to spend a cozy night at home, and relied on my stand mixer to do most the kneading. I divided the recipe in half, made a regular brioche with a portion of the dough and used the other half for rolls. I was thinking pecan sticky buns, or cinnamon rolls but then again I wanted creamy and caramel so I filled them with cream cheese and homemade dulce de leche, parked them in the fridge overnight and baked them on sunday morning....and reaped the rewards sitting on the couch reading the morning paper...my idea of a good day off.

Place 1/3 cup warm water, warm milk, and yeast in bowl of standing heavy-duty mixer; stir until yeast dissolves. Fit mixer with dough hook. Add flour and salt to bowl; mix on low speed just until flour is moistened, about 10 seconds. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl.Beat in 3 eggs on low speed, then add sugar. Increase speed to medium and beat until dough comes together, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add butter, 1 piece at a time, beating until each piece is almost incorporated before adding next (dough will be soft and batter-like). Increase speed to medium-high and beat until dough pulls away from sides of bowl, about 7 minutes.Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rise at room temperature until almost doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Lift up dough around edges and allow dough to fall and deflate in bowl.Cover bowl with plastic and chill until dough stops rising, lifting up dough around edges and allowing dough to fall and deflate in bowl every 30 minutes, about 2 hours total. Cover bowl with plastic and refrigerate an hour.

Take the dough out of the fridge and divide in half.

For the buns: roll out the dough to a 14x9 inch rectangle. Spread 1/3 cup softened cream cheese, leaving a 1 inch border. Spread the Dulce de Leche on top, it is messy, it will spread but hey! it's good. Roll into a log and cut into 12 pieces. Place them in a buttered 9 inch round pan, cover and refrigerate until the next morning. The dough will rise slowly overnight.

In the morning, bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

You can repeat with the other half or make a brioche loaf like I did (for another post).

Dulce de Leche:

I use "boil til done" method: take a 14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk and put in a large stockpot or dutch oven. Fill with water well above the can. Turn the heat on high and let it boil for a couple of hors. Make sure there is always enough water to cover the can.

Oh Helene these look delicious!Do you suppose I can work chocolate in there somehow? Maybe a few chunks of a good milk chocolate, chopped, and sprinkled over the filling? Mmm, I can almost taste it now :)What a wonderful idea for a weekend brunch.

Looks great! Prepping them over two days definitely makes the recipe seem more achievable too. It's the time element that often puts me off making slow rising doughs. I have always wanted to make Brioche!

Helene, that is off the charts! Brioche and dulce de leche -- that's just so right. I'm wondering if you might be able to give some advice about leavening yeast doughs in the fridge. What affect does chilling have? I know it retards the leavening process, but is there a limit? With this recipe, for example, how long could you let it sit in the fridge before affecting the quality of the final product? Does extended refrigeration have no effect on leavening but leave a more intense yeasty flavour?

Here is what I have noticed after years of bread making: I would not recommend longer than an overnight refrigeration 8-12 hours. A couple of things happen after that, with bread that do not contain a lot of butter the smell will get very yeasty and the crust won't be as nice looking when baked. The texture won't be affected too much but the taste will. With yeasted, eggy and buttery doughs like brioche, it will get yeasty tasting and the texture will be definetely altered. There will not be enough air to give you a nice crumb. The yeast seems to eat the protein in the egg and kill the texture/crumb development.No matter what kind of bread you do, I would not refrigerate longer than 12 hours.Hope this helps, and thank you for bringing this up!"

Now I wish I would have seen this recipe before making my cheesecake - I was reading over at Technicolor Kitchen and she made your beautiful rolls. I now see what I did wrong with my Dulce de Leche - I should have submersed it in the water to prevent the bottom from cooking more than the top. This is why I love this cooking community - I have so much to learn and this is a perfect place to learn!

Zorra: thanks for pointing that out. Sometimes I forget to write what is second nature when doing things....ma' bad! It is best to let them come back to room temperature befre baking if they have been in the fridge.

Oh wow! I just discovered these via Smitten Kitchen and am I ever glad I did. I've really been craving cinnamon rolls or cinnamon roll type things and these sound and look just perfect. Dulce de leche plus cream cheese baked up in a roll, mmm. Excellent creation!